Penmachine

Some time ago I linked to an awesome Stevie Wonder performance of "1-2-3" on Sesame Street from 1972. Now Bill has found another one from the same session:

Watch the drummer smile hugely just as Stevie and the band kick in at the beginning of the song, and feel the groove get stronger and stronger as the song speeds up. "Superstition" has been one of my favourite songs since I was a very little kid (probably since around the time of the video). The circular horn line in particular is buried primally in my hindbrain somewhere.

How could Stevie Wonder be that awesome 35 years ago, and then hardly put out any music over the past couple of decades? Damn.

Labels: band, memories, music, steviewonder, television

I've been listening over and over to Stevie Wonder's 1970 version of "We Can Work It Out" since I grabbed it on iTunes earlier today.

I think it could be the greatest Beatles cover anyone's recorded so far. Fantastic gritty keyboards, then, boom, straight into a superfunky, harmony-laden version so very different from the original, yet at least as good. I love the "hey!" background vocals, the frantic Motown tambourine, all that.

For everyone who's grown up after Wonder's peak in the early '70s and is puzzled at what the hype is about, "We Can Work It Out," like "Superstition" and many other tracks from that time, is the evidence you need.

Labels: band, music, recording, steviewonder